Requiem's right, Lun's game'z up!

[Alundra]

Machin Shin aka the mimic

This is an piece of information straight out of the wheel of time...

The Black Wind of the Ways. It is a part of the "Darkening of the Ways": "About a thousand years ago, during what you humans call the War of the Hundred Years, the Ways began to change....they grew dank and dim...some who came out had gone mad, raving about Machin Shin, the Black Wind." [TEOTW: 43, Decisions and Apparitions, 545] People who run into the Black Wind end up mad, or a mindless husk like the Ogier in [TGH: 36, Among The Elders, 435]. After TEOTW, Machin Shin gained a new feature: it somehow seeks out Rand. Whenever Rand tries to use the Ways, Machin Shin is found at the Waygate he is using. Note that this ONLY happens to Rand. When Liandrin, etc use the ways in TGH, and when Perrin does in TSR, they do not find the Black Wind waiting for them at the Waygate. This new effect is probably somehow due to its encounter with Fain in TEOTW. It seems to have picked up Fain's drive to seek out Rand. Note that it is probably NOT under Fain's control; Fain wanted Rand to follow him to Falme, but Machin Shin prevented him from doing so.
Where did the Black Wind come from? Nobody really knows. Moiraine makes some speculation in [TEOTW: 45, What Follows in Shadow, 576]: "Something left from the Time of Madness, perhaps....Or even from the War of the Shadow, the War of Power. Something hiding in the Ways so long it can no longer get out. No one, not even among the Ogier, knows how far the Ways run, or how deep. It could even be something of the Ways themselves. As Loial said, the Ways are living things, and all living things have parasites. Perhaps even a creature of the corruption itself, something born of the decay. Something that hates life and light."

Some people believe that Mashadar and Machin Shin are somehow connected, that Mashadar somehow got into the Ways through the Shadar Logoth Waygate and then became the Black Wind. This is very unlikely, for the following reasons: 1) Mashadar dates from the Trolloc Wars, Machin Shin from the Hundred Years' War. That is about a thousand years' difference. Thus, the time scale does not agree. 2) Mashadar is a slow-moving glowing fog that kills everything it touches. Machin Shin is a black, howling wind that eats your soul, but doesn't kill your body. So, there is no similarity of appearance, or effect. 3) If Mashadar could get into the Ways from Shadar Logoth, logic says it could get out of the Ways at some other point, and spread itself across Randland. This clearly hasn't happened.

Clearly obvious AND I felt it belonged in the Estrana forum for obvious reasons that not everybody reads the other forums (or so it seems)
Good job requiem for pointing it out (once more) that the wheel of time holds plenty of answers about the way!

[Sarcasm]

Answers? More like inspiration.

[Alundra]

Yeah, call it what you want, there are more then obvious parallells ^_^
The Mists, the mimic, the cleansing, the purpose and a lot more can be
'traced back' to this series of books, all in different form and with different names, but the similarities are striking! I'M NOT SAYING THIS IS A BAD THING!!! I'm just happy a lot of things are making a lot more sense now.

For instance, there was something about that lil' kid sleeping in dream estrana, when I replayed the way series last week. I was sooo sure it had
to be something, maybe even similar to link's awakening that the kid was dreaming the whole thing...
Now read this part from the wheel of time.
The Amayar are followers of the Water Way and generally ignore the world beyond their scattered islands. They believe that this world is only an illusion, a mirrored reflection of belief. Some of their prophecies speak of the one of the two great sa'angreal on Tremalking and the "end of illusions".

It is interesting to note that there is a similarity between their view of the world as an illusion and the Aiel's view of the world as a dream, which raises the question whether the two people are related and maybe both descendants of the Da'shain Aiel.

All Amayar - men, women, and children - committed mass suicide by poison when the great female sa'angreal was partially destroyed when it was used in the cleansing of saidin; according to Amayar prophesies this signaled the "End of Illusion", and the Amayar must "wake" from this dream and enter a new world. Several are known to have survived, kept from death by the Sea Folk. This makes them very sad.
Either this is a metaphor for what happens to Rhue in the 'neo' ending, or
this is to be taken literally in regards to that little kid.
I'd post loads more, but I leave that honor to requiem who started the whole 'illumination'

Edjt: DAMN! I should've realised this sooner! I knew the title of this book series as I started to replay Neverwinter Nights since last month. Looking up more information about the spine of the world led me to some books about the forgotten realms...
THIS IS A MAJOR BOOK SERIES based on the 'world of Dungeons and Dragons!" Or at least partly... It shouldn't surprise us, as Fwacho often stated that Luke and himself played D&D when they were younger and that the way was based on a story they once made (it even dates back to them playing with GI Joes or so it's stated on the boards somewhere). For me it's all coming together now

[Sarcasm]

Actually, they've stated they both despised D&D.
they've played a mech robots roleplaying game.

And there's no single world where D&D takes place, you have Greyhawk, dark sun, the forgotten realms (NWN's setting) Ebboren, Planescape, Ravenloft, and many more.

You are drawing pointless lines in my opinion,
I hardly see any MEANINGFUL connections.


if this was truly this simple, wouldnt the FIRST time we "found out" about this reveal us everything we need to know? this is the third time this subject is brought up on the forum if I am not mistaken.

[Elachim]

To me, the most relevant thing was on the wiki link:

(grr... trying to find that link again... Ah, here we go.)

Robert Jordan himself once said: "The characters in the books are the source of many of our myths and legends, and we are the source of many of theirs. You can look two ways along a wheel." [America Online chat, June 28, 1996]

I think that's pretty much what Lun would say about his own inspiration.

ed: ambiguous typo

[Alundra]

Dudes, don't get me wrong here... I'm not saying Lun stole anything of that book series or that writer's work! Everybody incorporates things they like in their own work or even life... I actually love the way Lun used certain things and twisted them to fit his own gameworld. I actually intend to do something similar ^_^
BUT I'm trying to solve the MANY questions left after this wonderful game and this SEEMS to offer some possible answers even if they are not directly linked to the way.

Btw, looking up monsters to create a bestiary book for in my own game I stumbled upon this one :
http://surbrook.devermore.net/adaptions ... satha.html

Satha, citadel... and snake hence the hissing noises made by scatha might this be another thing used as inspiration?
It seems to me our dearest Luke deserves more then just a few months of vacation, as it occurs to me this dude has been roaming books and the net looking for so much stuff to write a deep story, he's bound to be exhausted!

[Sarcasm]

Aludra, No offence, but it seems to me that you have simply convinced yourself of these ideas, About no other person has noticed any of the things you have said.

To me, the most relevant thing was on the wiki link:

(grr... trying to find that link again... Ah, here we go.)

Robert Jordan himself once said: "The characters in the books are the source of many of our myths and legends, and we are the source of many of theirs. You can look two ways along a wheel." [America Online chat, June 28, 1996]

I think that's pretty much what Lun would say about his own inspiration.

ed: ambiguous typo

. . . I cant believe I havent noticed that before. well done

[Alundra]

Well... I went and asked Lun himself about the whole Wheel of Time thingy and he said he only read the 4 first novels and then gave up...
So no inspiration comes from them and it's all pure coïnsidence... (feels tiny bit stoopied )
The similiarities are often striking yet when it comes to Lun, I'd humongously doubt he like, ever, would to dare to lie to his fans so there we have it!
Still it would've been a nice way to get some answers real quick after looking for so long
Guess we'll all have to look more inside to fill the gaps I guess!

[Fitz Tayo]

Well... I went and asked Lun himself about the whole Wheel of Time thingy and he said he only read the 4 first novels and then gave up...
So no inspiration comes from them and it's all pure coïnsidence... (feels tiny bit stoopied )
The similiarities are often striking yet when it comes to Lun, I'd humongously doubt he like, ever, would to dare to lie to his fans so there we have it!
Still it would've been a nice way to get some answers real quick after looking for so long
Guess we'll all have to look more inside to fill the gaps I guess!

That's what you get when you try your satanic, voodoo, hippee theories here. Them being not true that is.

[fwacho]

As far as I know, Lun has only read the first book of the wheel of time.

[Alundra]

[quote="fwacho"]As far as I know, Lun has only read the first book of the wheel of time.[/quote]
lol hey you're supposed to be his brother... I wrote exactly what he told me in a pm... maybe there's a bunch of things lun hides from you ^_^

[Strayed Wanderer]

Or maybe it isn't interesting enough for Lun to bring up in conversation with Fwacho.